India, April 27 -- There was a time when waste was biodegradable, cities were smaller, and nature had the capacity to quietly absorb human excesses. That time is long gone. Today, waste is no longer a by-product of life-it has become a defining threat to it. And nowhere is this more visible than in India, where the garbage crisis is not creeping up slowly; it is already sitting at our doorstep, uncollected, untreated, and increasingly unmanageable.

Every year, the world generates over 2 billion tonnes of waste. A large portion of this ends up in landfills, where it decomposes to release methane-a greenhouse gas nearly 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide. This is not just an environmental statistic; it is a warning signal. While glob...